The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror

 

In 2001, the year when America suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack -- by far the biggest in its history -- roughly 3,000 people died from terrorism in the U.S. Let's put that in context. 
That same year in the United States: 
71,372 died of diabetes. 
29,573 were killed by guns. 
13,290 were killed in drunk driving accidents. 

Americans would never welcome a secret surveillance state to reduce diabetes deaths, or gun deaths, or drunk-driving deaths by 3,000 per year. Indeed, Congress regularly votes down far less invasive policies meant to address those problems because they offend our notions of liberty. So what sense does it make to suggest, as Obama does, that "balancing" liberty with safety from terrorism -- which kills far fewer than 3,000 Americans annually -- compels those same invasive methods to be granted, in secret, as long as terrorists are plotting? That only makes sense if the policy is aimed at lessening not just at wrongful deaths, but also exaggerated fears and emotions**. Hence my refusal to go along. 

Do you know what scares me more than terrorism? A polity that reacts to fear by ceding more autonomy and power to its secret police.

read more
The Irrationality of Giving Up This Much Liberty to Fight Terror - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic: